SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/6/2021 12:01 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “John’s Privileged Calling”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 11:9-11
Message of the verses: “9 “But what did
you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a
prophet. 10 “This is the one about whom it is written, ‘BEHOLD, I SEND MY
MESSENGER AHEAD OF YOU, WHO WILL
PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’ 11 “Truly I say to you, among
those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the
Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
In verse nine Jesus attests that not only was John a
prophet, but more than a prophet as He quotes Malachi 3:1 “"Behold, I am
going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord,
whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the
covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the LORD of
hosts.” Now I want to look at verse 10
from the NASB “10 "This is the one about whom it is written, ‘BEHOLD, I
SEND MY MESSENGER BEFORE YOUR FACE, WHO WILL PREPARE YOUR WAY BEFORE YOU.’” Notice the difference between the NASB and
the NASB95 as the 95 version says “ahead of You,” while the NASB says “before
your face.” MacArthur paraphrases this
by witting “Behold, I, Jehovah, send My messenger John the Baptist to be the
forerunner of You, the Messiah, and to prepare the people for Your coming.”
So
we see that John was a prophet and also the fulfillment of prophecy. John was the Lord’s messenger who was to
prepare the way for Messiah and who would even baptize Him. This was such a great privilege for him. John announced the Messiah and ministered to
the Messiah with his own hands—as no other prophet had done or would ever again
do, because after the Messiah came there would be no more need of the types of
OT prophets because Messiah is here. So
after thousands of years of God’s preparation and prediction, John was given
the unequalled privilege of being the Messiah’s personal herald.
Jesus
goes on to continue His praise of John as He says “Truly, I say to you, among
those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” MacArthur adds “To emphasize the unquestionable
truthfulness of what He said, Jesus prefaced His words with ‘verily’ (amen), a term of strong affirmation
often simply transliterated as ‘Amen.’”
As
we look at the phrase “born of woman’ this shows a common ancient expression that
simply referred to basic humanness, to identification with the human race. We know from our earlier study in Matthew
that John’s birth was miraculous. Now the point that Jesus was making was that
as far as mankind is concerned, “there has not arisen anyone greater than John the
Baptist.” John was the greatest human
being who had lived until that time. Now
from an earthly perspective, John’s character and calling made him the greatest
man yet born besides Jesus Himself. In
superior qualities as a human being, John was unequalled.”
MacArthur
writes “Arisen’ is from egeiro, which
means to rise up or to appear on the stage of history and was often used of
prophets, but true and false… Not only as a human being but as a prophet, no
one had ‘arisen’ to equal John, because he was sent on the very threshold of
the kingdom of the Lord Jesus.
“But
lest the people misunderstand the nature of John’s greatness, Jesus added, ‘yet
he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’ Although he was a spiritual giant among men,
John’s unique greatness was in his role in human history, not in his spiritual
inheritance, in which he would be equal to every believer. Therefore, ‘the least in the kingdom of
heaven,’ the spiritual dimension, ‘is greater than he,’ that is, than anyone in
human dimension, including John.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful to learn more about John the
Baptist, as sometimes I seem to just pass over the things in the Bible written
about him.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord to keep me on the straight and
narrow and to also continue to trust Him to teach me the things that I need to
know to teach through Hebrews.
12/6/2021 12:30 PM
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